1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to methods and systems that allow a user to develop and evaluate a design on a surface.
2. Description of the Background of the Invention
Improving the aesthetics in homes has long been practiced by many consumers. There is a plethora of home products and techniques for cleaning surface areas of soft surfaces, such as carpets, rugs, draperies, curtains, upholstery, and the like. For more sullied and/or worn surfaces, subtractive processes are sometimes used, for example, processes that chemically or physically remove something from the carpet, such as chemical cleaners or shaving. However, such cleaning products and subtractive processes often cannot truly restore the surface to its original state, which is often very frustrating for consumers.
Additive processes for improving the aesthetics of surfaces are also known, for example, processes that layer, cover, or mask something undesirable underneath, including painting, faux painting, stenciling, bordering, wallpapering, tiling, wainscoting, paneling, decorative plastering, adding appliqués, laminating, molding, and the like.
Generally, designs for such additive processes have been developed by design professionals with input from the consumer. As a result, the design process for such processes have typically required a consumer to visit a showroom or for a design professional to visit the consumer's home, which results in a time consuming and costly process.
Consequently, there has developed a need for consumers to be able to conveniently develop their own designs, e.g., using computer aided design programs. Such computer aided design programs have been available both online, e.g., via an internet website, and offline, e.g., through purchase of a software package. In a first example of a computer aided design program, a consumer selects a product, e.g., clothing, office and school supplies, sporting equipment, etc., and personalizes such product with pictures, text, logos, and the like. In a second example of a computer aided design program, a consumer selects and arranges furniture in a three-dimensional representation of a room before purchasing and/or physically rearranging such furniture. However, the above first and second examples of computer aided design programs do not adequately aid the consumer in developing their own designs, but merely allow the consumer to select from pre-existing designs to modify a product in the first example or to rearrange furniture in a room in the second example.
Two dimensional design programs, for example, Adobe Illustrator®, developed by the Adobe Corporation of San Jose, Calif., or CorelDraw®, developed by the Corel Corporation of Ottawa, Canada, allow users to compose two-dimensional drawings. Such programs have vector-drawing tools that allow the user to compose shapes using lines, arcs, curves, and the like. Such drawings may also allow the user to select colors that may be applied to shapes drawn thereby.
However, such prior programs do not allow a user to design a surface using the additive processes described in, for example, Shah et al. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/152,322, Bass et al. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/152,405, filed on the same day as the present disclosure, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Such additive processes allow a customer to develop designs that can be applied to a soft surface, such as carpets, rugs, draperies, curtains, upholstery, and the like. In one embodiment, the designs are applied using one or more stencils and colorants. Therefore, a need is present for a convenient and effective program to aid in the development of such designs. Still further, it would be an added benefit if such program could allow a user to view a design on a surface in a virtual environment that resembles the actual environment where the design is to be applied before the user decides to apply the design to the surface.